Different effects of adding white noise on cognitive performance of sub-, normal and super-attentive school children

Objectives: Noise often has detrimental effects on performance. However, because of the phenomenon of stochastic resonance (SR), auditory white noise (WN) can alter the "signal to noise'' ratio and improve performance. The Moderate Brain Arousal (MBA) model postulates different levels of internal "neural noise'' in individuals with different attentional capacities. This in turn determines the particular WN level most beneficial in each individual case-with one level of WN facilitating poor attenders but hindering super-attentive children. The objective of the present study is to find out if added WN affects cognitive performance differently in children that differ in attention ability. Methods: Participants were teacher-rated super-(N = 25); normal-(N = 29) and sub-attentive (N = 36) children (aged 8 to 10 years). Two non-executive function (EF) tasks (a verbal episodic recall task and a delayed verbal recognition task) and two EF tasks (a visuo-spatial working memory test and a Go-NoGo task) were performed under three WN levels. The non-WN condition was only used to control for potential differences in background noise in the group testing situations. Results: There were different effects of WN on performance in the three groups-adding moderate WN worsened the performance of super-attentive children for both task types and improved EF performance in sub-attentive children. The normal-attentive children's performance was unaffected by WN exposure. The shift from moderate to high levels of WN had little further effect on performance in any group. Significance: The predicted differential effect of WN on performance was confirmed. However, the failure to find evidence for an inverted U function challenges current theories. Alternative explanations are discussed. We propose that WN therapy should be further investigated as a possible non-pharmacological treatment for inattention

The Tully-Fisher relation of distant field galaxies

We examine the evolution of the Tully-Fisher relation (TFR) using a sample of 89 field spirals, with 0.1 < z < 1, for which we have measured confident rotation velocities (Vrot). By plotting the residuals from the local TFR versus redshift, or alternatively fitting the TFR to our data in several redshift bins, we find evidence that luminous spiral galaxies are increasingly offset from the local TFR with redshift, reaching a brightening of -1.0+-0.5 mag, for a given Vrot, by approximately z = 1. Since selection effects would generally increase the fraction of intrinsically-bright galaxies at higher redshifts, we argue that the observed evolution is probably an upper limit. Previous studies have used an observed correlation between the TFR residuals and Vrot to argue that low mass galaxies have evolved significantly more than those with higher mass. However, we demonstrate that such a correlation may exist purely due to an intrinsic coupling between the Vrot scatter and TFR residuals, acting in combination with the TFR scatter and restrictions on the magnitude range of the data, and therefore it does not necessarily indicate a physical difference in the evolution of galaxies with different Vrot. Finally, if we interpret the luminosity evolution derived from the TFR as due to the evolution of the star formation rate (SFR) in these luminous spiral galaxies, we find that SFR(z) is proportional to (1+z)^(1.7+-1.1), slower than commonly derived for the overall field galaxy population. This suggests that the rapid evolution in the SFR density of the universe observed since approximately z = 1 is not driven by the evolution of the SFR in individual bright spiral galaxies. (Abridged.)Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, accepted by MNRA

A preliminary examination of the deployment of lean and reverse logistics within the pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC) UK

Drug treatment is the most common form of healthcare intervention and represents the highest non-staff revenue cost in the UK National Health Service (NHS).The annual drugs bill in the UK equates to just about 10% of NHS expenditure (McKee, 2012). Demand for NHS healthcare is effectively infinite (Lodge and Bamford, 2008); there are constant efforts to increase capacity and operational budgets are constrained. One area where hospital pharmacies are looking for cost saving and better services is through improving their Supply Chain Management (SCM) (AT Kearney, 2009). However, they have not only to manage the forward components of the logistics process to minimise waste and maximise patient wellbeing, but to manage the reverse components as well (Jamali et al., 2010). Success in this area can be realised through the application of a Lean Philosophy which focuses on eliminating waste by defining value (Brandao, 2009)

The Teaching of Procedure Across Common Law Systems

What difference does the teaching of procedure make to legal education, legal scholarship, the legal profession, and civil justice reform? This first of four articles on the teaching of procedure canvasses the landscape of current approaches to the teaching of procedure in four legal systems—the United States, Canada, Australia, and England and Wales—surveying the place of procedure in the law school curriculum and in professional training, the kinds of subjects that “procedure” encompasses, and the various ways in which procedure is learned. Little sustained reflection has been carried out as to the import and impact of this longstanding law school subject. Through a comparative approach, this series of articles explores what difference the approach a particular jurisdiction has chosen to adopt makes for legal education, legal scholarship, the practice of law and the profession, and to civil justice reform in our legal system. En quoi l’enseignement de la procédure civile modifi e-t-il les études juridiques, la recherche juridique, la profession d’avocat et la réforme de la justice civile? Ce premier de quatre articles sur l’enseignement de la procédure dresse le tableau de l’approche actuellement utilisée dans quatre systèmes juridiques – aux États-Unis, au Canada, en Australie, en Angleterre et au Pays de Galles – et se penche sur la place qu’occupe la procédure dans le programme des facultés de droit et dans la formation professionnelle, les matières qui constituent la « procédure » et les diverses façons d’apprendre la procédure. L’importance et l’incidence de cette matière traditionnelle des facultés de droit ont fait jusqu’ici l’objet de fort peu de réfl exion en profondeur. Par le biais d’une approche comparative, cette série d’articles examine en quoi l’approche adoptée dans ces pays modifi e chez nous les études et la recherche juridiques, la pratique du droit, la profession d’avocat et la réforme du système de justice civile

Galaxy Zoo: Multimergers and the Millennium Simulation

We present a catalogue of 39 multiple mergers, found using the mergers catalogue of the Galaxy Zoo project for z <0.1, and compare them to corresponding semi-analytical galaxies from the Millennium Simulation. We estimate the (volume-limited) multimerger fraction of the local Universe using our sample and find it to be at least 2 orders of magnitude less than binary mergers - in good agreement with the simulations (especially the Munich group). We then investigate the properties of galaxies in binary mergers and multimergers (morphologies, colours, stellar masses and environment) and compare these results with those predicted by the semi-analytical galaxies. We find that multimergers favour galaxies with properties typical of elliptical morphologies and that this is in qualitative agreement with the models. Studies of multimergers thus provide an independent (and largely corroborating) test of the Millennium semi-analytical models.Peer reviewe

MegaMorph: classifying galaxy morphology using multi-wavelength S\'ersic profile fits

Aims. This work investigates the potential of using the wavelength-dependence of galaxy structural parameters (S\'ersic index, n, and effective radius, Re) to separate galaxies into distinct types. Methods. A sample of nearby galaxies with reliable visual morphologies is considered, for which we measure structural parameters by fitting multi-wavelength single-S\'ersic models. Additionally, we use a set of artificially redshifted galaxies to test how these classifiers behave when the signal-to-noise decreases. Results. We show that the wavelength-dependence of n may be employed to separate visually-classified early- and late-type galaxies, in a manner similar to the use of colour and n. Furthermore, we find that the wavelength variation of n can recover galaxies that are misclassified by these other morphological proxies. Roughly half of the spiral galaxies that contaminate an early-type sample selected using (u-r) versus n can be correctly identified as late-types by N, the ratio of n measured in two different bands. Using a set of artificially-redshifted images, we show that this technique remains effective up to z ~ 0.1. N can therefore be used to achieve purer samples of early-types and more complete samples of late-types than using a colour-n cut alone. We also study the suitability of R, the ratio of Re in two different bands, as a morphological classifier, but find that the average sizes of both early- and late-type galaxies do not change substantially over optical wavelengths.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, Accepted for publication in A&

Evolution of field spiral galaxies up to redshifts z=1

We have gained VLT/FORS spectra and HST/ACS images of a sample of 220 distant field spiral galaxies. Spatially resolved rotation curves were extracted and fitted with synthetic velocity fields that take into account all geometric and observational effects, like blurring due to the slit width and seeing influence. The maximum rotation velocity Vmax could be determined for 124 galaxies that cover the redshift range 0.1<z<1.0. The luminosity-rotation velocity distribution of this sample is offset from the Tully-Fisher relation (TFR) of local low-mass spirals, whereas the distant high-mass spirals are compatible with the local TFR. We show that the slope of the local and the intermediate-z TFR would be in compliance if its scatter decreased by more than a factor of 3 between z~0.5 and z~0. On the other hand, the distant low-luminosity disks have much lower stellar M/L ratios than their local counterparts, while high-luminosity disks barely evolved in M/L over the covered redshift range. This could be the manifestation of the "downsizing" effect, i.e. the succesive shift of the peak of star formation from high-mass to low-mass galaxies towards lower redshifts. This trend might be canceled out in the TF diagram due to the simultaneous evolution of multiple parameters. We also estimate the ratios between stellar and total masses, finding that these remained constant since z=1, as would be expected in the context of hierarchically growing structure. (Abridged)Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, ApJ, accepte